


A Gift from Ahab

by Deannie



Series: Loneliness [3]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1995-11-19
Updated: 1995-11-19
Packaged: 2018-01-01 16:24:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1045993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the hospital on her birthday, Scully receives a present from her father--now many months dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Gift from Ahab

Dads, Dana Scully decided with a sad smile, were funny. Especially hers. She looked down at the package in her hands, almost afraid to open it. 

Here it was, her thirty-second birthday. He had been gone for much more than a year, and his loss touched her as painfully today as it had on this day a year ago. And today, she had recieved a present from him.

She was in the hospital--again. She wondered that the FBI didn't drop her from their medical plan. Certainly Accounting had to shudder whenever they saw something with her name on it. At least this time, they wouldn't be picking up the bill. Triple-A might throw a fit, but she figured she could probably afford the hike in her premium.

She smiled again, quietly, carressing the corners of the package, loathe to break its spell on her, loathe to reveal his last gift to her.

The door slipped open, and she looked up, smiling at the tall man hidden behind a huge bouquet of yellow roses. "Hi, Mulder."

"Happy Birthday, Scully."

He set the roses on a nearby table, surveying the other gifts as she surveyed him.

The greatest gift she had recieved this year. Two weeks ago, she had almost been willing to believe him dead. Then, like those miracles her mother so believed in, he had returned to her, and those terrifyingly empty days in a Virginia hospital had finally been rewarded, when he had opened his eyes and been with her--really _with_ her, not trapped in the horror that Conche had led him to.

He was still painfully thin, and the suits that used to make him look like something out of GQ, now made him look like a well-dressed scarecrow.

But this too would pass, she realized with a smile, as he eyed a box of chocolates greedily.

"Take one," she offered, shifting uncomfortably in the elevated bed. "With the running I _won't_ be able to do for the next month or so, I don't need the extra calories--and _you_ could use the weight."

He looked over at his partner. She had lost what looked like half her weight in the last three months, and the back brace that engulfed her seemed sizes too big. "You couldn't?" he asked fondly.

"Weight, yes," she conceded. "Fat, no."

He cast her a shy glance. "You want _me_ to get fat?"

She smiled sardonically. "You weigh even less than I do, Mulder. Nothing could make you fat, now."

He shrugged happily and grabbed a few chocolates, snagging a cherry creme for her. "So what do the doctors say?"

She tried to shrug. "Another few days here," she rolled her eyes. "Then bedrest for a week."

Mulder sighed loudly as he sank into the chair beside her. "The office is going to fall apart without you."

She smiled wryly. "That office fell apart a long time ago." She half-shrugged again, hampered by the brace that supported her back. "Besides, you've handled it alone before."

The silence was deafening, and she winced at it. She knew now what he had felt when she had disappeared. She supposed that, like him, she would come to cringe at stray remarks like that, too.

"Sorry," she said quietly, her eyes straying back to the parcel in her lap.

"What's that?" he asked, shrugging it off, as he always did. 

She smiled the tender smile she seemed to reserve for family--and for him. "A present from Ahab." She looked up at his silence. "An old friend of his dropped it by this morning." Her voice took on a comical sterness. "Admiral Dickey Ponfrey, United States Navy, retired."

Mulder laughed. She would have saluted if she could have. 

She continued in a soft voice--a little regret, a lot of fondness. "Uncle Dick and Dad did a few tours together. Next to Ahab, he was my favourite Navy man." She looked up from the package. "He said he thought Dad would have liked me to have it."

Mulder was quiet for a moment. "Are you going to open it?" 

She smiled, placing it gently on the tray before her, and turning toward him uncomfortably. "Later," she said, popping the chocolate into her mouth and trying to talk around it. "What's going on at work?" 

He threw his head back with a silent laugh. "Scully! For once, you've got two weeks off from work--no aliens, no psychos--"

"An aching back and a broken arm," she finished wearily. "Mulder, I'm going crazy in this place."

He threw up his hands in defeat. "All right then, you asked for it." He leaned forward. "Carl seems to have plunged back in with a vengence." He took a moment, smiling at the young agent's resilience. "He and Bri asked me to consult on a missing persons case in Colorado. Seems five young girls have disappeared there in the last three weeks..."

They debated the possibility of alien involvement for a while, Scully trying to do her part to steer Mulder back toward sanity.

"Come on, Mulder," she said wearily, "just because some kids _say_ they saw... a..." She trailed off, her face going grey as she almost bit through her lip.

"Scully?" He stood up suddenly, moving to her side.

His solicitous hovering irritated her. "I'm all right, Mulder." She took a deep breath, gritting her teeth. "Having the brace on is great for my spine, but it causes my back muscles fits." She sighed quietly as the spasms abated, smiling tiredly at his concern. "Come on, Mulder. I've been through worse than a car accident in the last two and half years."

  
Mulder sat back down warily. A car accident. Only Scully would describe a seventeen car pile-up as a "car accident." The police figured she didn't have time to slow down to fifty before plowing into the melee in the dense fog.

He shuddered suddenly, remembering when they had called him, remembering her, bruised and bleeding and hung up in a swing bed while they tried to decide whether she had broken her back.

She smiled reassuringly. "I'm _okay,_ Mulder." Laughter caught her by surprise and she tried not to hurt herself with it. "Actually, it's just about the first normal thing that's happened to me in the last couple of years."

He smiled sadly at that. She had been through hell in the past few years. To Hell and back--and still she was cool, calm, centered. Lost her father, her sister, three months of her life--and still she seemed always to pick up the pieces and move on. He envied her control.

But she was tired now He could see it in her eyes. He rose, touching her hand gently. "I'll come by tomorrow morning."

She shook her head. "Come by tonight." She was loathe to let him out of her sight these days, afraid that he would disappear like a stray thought if she did. "Mom somehow got the boys to come in for a birthday party." She grimaced, looked up pleadingly. "I'm going to need some backup."

He smiled slightly. "Are you suggesting I might be called to draw a gun on your family?"

"No, but you might have to stop me from drawing mine." She smiled wryly and lifted her plastered arm. "Even with this, I think I might be able to take out at least one of them."

"Then I'd have to arrest you," he said, mock-serious, with another squeeze to her good hand. He remembered another time, on another floor of this same hospital, when she had come back to him. He would do anything for her--even spend a night with her family. "When does the fun start?"

"Eight-thirty."

He nodded toward the package. "That'll give you time to open your present." He squeezed her hand once more and slipped out.

* * *

She had studied the present for nearly an hour before sliding it slowly out of the wrapping. It was a cigar box, with a note on it. She pulled the note off and ran her fingers carefully over the seal burned into the top of the box. _Dolce Far Niente._

"Sweet Nothings?" she wondered aloud. Italian was _not_ her language.

She opened the note that had been taped to it. Dickey Ponfrey's precise writing flowed across the page.

> _Dear Starbuck--_  
>  I know how much Bill would want to be with you today. I'm sorry that he'll miss another birthday, but I thought you might like these as a remembrance of him.  
>     There are a lot of 'Foxhole Letters' here--letters all of us wrote to our families when things looked hairy--when we thought we might not be coming back. We'd give them to each other to deliver--just in case. He always wrote to you first.  
>     The rest are letters he wrote to me during his last few years, telling me about everybody's lives, telling me how proud he was of you.  
>     He did love you, Starbuck. And he was so proud. Whatever problems you had, whatever you fought about, don't ever forget that he was proud of you.  
>     If you don't believe me, read his words for yourself.  
>     Your father was a great friend, and I always thought of you as a daughter. Think of these as my present to both of you--A peace offering from his grave.  
>     Love,  
>     Moby

She opened the box gingerly, sniffing pleasantly at the old scent of fine cigars. Dick had always loved them, had whined childishly when he was forced to quit. She steeled herself and opened the box, pulling out the first letter, dated July 11, 1975. She traced the rich cursive of her name in his handwriting.

> _Starbuck,  
>  There's a big storm brewing out here. We lost power about five hours ago, and... Well, it's strange being on a dead boat.  
>     Tell Bill, Jr. I'll have words with him if he teases you too much. But remember that he loves you. Don't ever forget that. It's only that he doesn't know how to show it._

"Neither did you," she whispered fondly, diving back into the letter.

> _Tell your mother I_ love her. I know she takes good care of you all when I'm gone, and she needs to hear that sometimes. And don't fight with her so much. You're a big girl now, so you think you know best, but she's still your mother. She's been around a lot longer than you have. She knows some things.  
>     I have to go up top now, honey. Take care of each other. I love you all. When I get home, I'll have present for you.  
>     I miss you, Starbuck.  
>     Ahab

Scully ran a finger over his signature: large, florid figures, a bold A followed by smaller, precise letters. Intricate writing from an intricate man.

She read through the rest of the "Foxhole Letters," remembering each homecoming, wondering that he never told them about all the near-misses: three collisions at sea, four other fierce storms, one engine fire...

There were countless more, some she knew about, most he had kept secret. Never want to worry the family, he must have thought. 

She smiled at the memory of her mother, always watching the weather where his ship went, always worrying about tropical depressions or deep off-shore fog. He couldn't have stopped them worrying no matter how hard he tried.

Each letter was a whole series of memories. She still had the little geisha doll he had brought back from that tour in July, 1975. He had been so careful with it, carrying it, wrapped lovingly in tissue paper, all the way from Japan.

The second packet of letters was more intimidating. The first one was dated three days after their first fight about her plan to join the FBI. She tried not to cry as she read it.  


> _Dickey--_  
>  Dana has decided to join the FBI. I can't think of a worse idea! She's a doctor, for God's sake! The FBI is no place for her. No advancement, no security. She even wants to be an active agent.  
>     I wanted something more for her, you know, Dickey? A nice practice somewhere, a husband, kids. She deserves a lot more than a gun and the chance to get shot daily!  
>     She won't listen to me, of course. I could almost curse my temper. She inherited the stubborness from me. The courage, I think she must have got from her mother.  
>     God, Dickey, what kind of a life is that for my little girl? She needs be safe. That can't happen where she wants to go.  
>     I think I ruined it now, anyway. I just couldn't let her do it without at least voicing my disapproval. She hasn't spoken to me in three days, Dickey. She thinks I only think of her as my little girl. But I'm supposed to, damnit! She is my little girl, and I love her. I couldn't stand it if anything happened to her.  
>     But she's so damn stubborn, you know? She just won't see that, for once, her old Dad is making sense.

Scully let the tears fall. He hadn't really told her this. It might not have made a difference, she thought, looking back at her younger self with candor. But still...

 _The courage, I think she must have got from her mother._ Scully sighed sadly. She had always thought him the bravest man alive, until those fights. She cried in painful embarassment now, as she remembered the thoughts that had run through her head then: He was just a control freak, an over-protective Dad. Couldn't he just let her make her own life? Didn't he know that this was what she wanted? Didn't he have enough courage to just let her do it herself, instead of feeling like he had to shepherd her through life?

She almost didn't read the rest. She didn't want to know what he had thought of her in those years of estrangement. How much of a mistake did he think she had made with her life?

She looked back on her years with the Bureau. How much of a mistake _had_ it all been? She had lost so much since she left Quantico. And so much horror stayed with her. So many nightmares. Melissa featured prominently now, she thought, rubbing a tissue over her eyes with her awkward left hand. And Mulder had made a distressing reappearance in the past few months--just when she thought she had finally come to terms with New Mexico.

But she would never come to terms with it all, she realized sadly. She'd never come to terms with the death of her big sister, or the pain she had caused her mother, or all the terrifying near-misses she and Mulder had helped each other through, or Ahab's--

No, she thought sternly. Stop it. The stress of the last few months, the pain of her injury, the shock of the accident--all of it was conspiring to weaken her. She couldn't let it.

If anything, she thought, the last year should have taught her that what she was doing was right. No matter how hopeless it seemed--how difficult--it was right.

* * *

> _Dickey--_  
>  Dana got a new partner this month. Magg says she's not sure if Starbuck likes him. He's weird, appearantly. Magg laughed when she told me that Dana thought maybe this Mulder character and Melissa might make a good pair.  
>     I want to call her. She's doing so well--really making a name for herself. I always knew she'd succeed wherever she went, but she seems to be a real rising star in the Bureau. Whatever I think of the Bureau as a whole, I'm so glad to see her succeeding.  
>     She'd probably just hang up on me. Magg said she asks after me every time they talk, but I get the feeling it's more for her mother's benefit than for me.  
>     I just don't know how to approach her anymore. She's so adult, so refined. You should see her sometime, Dickey. You almost wouldn't recognize her. She looks so like Maggie did when she was her age. So beautiful.  
>     Maybe I'll call her. I know you're just going to write back and tell me to, anyway, so I'll save you the trouble. I just don't know what to say.

She smiled at the memory. Mulder had seemed so... _outrageous_ when they started together. She really hadn't known what to make of him. The last month and a half had shown her that, now, she wouldn't know what to do without him.

She sighed deeply, her memory slipping to the phone call she got a week after the date on that letter.

> "Hello, Starbuck?"
> 
> "Uncle Dick! Hi, how are you?"
> 
> "I'm fine, honey, how are you?" His voice had positively twinkled. "I hear you got a new partner."
> 
> She remembered being a little perplexed. "How did you know?"
> 
> "Your dad told me."
> 
> "Oh."
> 
> Dickey was silent for a moment. "Has he called you, Starbuck?"
> 
> "No," she said surprised. "Why? Is something wrong?" She had talked to her mother two days before, and she hadn't mentioned anything.
> 
> "No," Dickey had replied slowly, sounding a little perplexed himself. "He just told me he was going to, that's all."
> 
> "Why?" Her father never called her--at least not voluntarily. 
> 
> Dickey's voice became soft. "Just to see how you're doing. To see what you think of your new partner. Just to talk."
> 
> Scully had shaken her head, a little sadly, a little angrily. "He and I don't 'just talk' anymore, Uncle Dick."
> 
> His voice had taken on that hard drill sargent's tone. "That's something you should change, Starbuck. Now." He softened again. "Just call him, Dana. He'd like to hear from you."
> 
> She had sat there for a moment. Would he? Would he really like to hear from the daughter who had gone so against his wishes? Who had made such a failure of her life? "Maybe I will, Uncle Dick."
> 
> He had sighed. "But probably you won't." He had spoken quietly, sadly. "Dana, there's going to come a time when you'll wish you had spoken with him. Things aren't as bad as either of you are making them out to be. You just need to _talk._ "

He had been so right, she thought, running yet another tissue under her eyes. She wondered how much could have been repaired if she had just picked up the phone and called him.

Probably very little, she thought truthfully. The one time she had called him, the one time she had really tried to reach out to him for help, for guidance, he had reacted just as she knew he would, and she had done the same.

> "Hello?"
> 
> "Hi... Dad?"
> 
> "Dana?" His voice had been rough, surprised. "What's wrong?"
> 
> She had shrugged, looking abashedly at her feet, as if he were there, towering over her, instead of sitting in his kitchen at the other end of the phone line. "Nothing, really. I just... wanted to talk."
> 
> "About?" She had heard it as gruffness, indifference, though she realized now that it had probably just been his own awkwardness.
> 
> "Just... I don't know, Dad. Work is getting really... odd."
> 
> He had snorted with more disdain than she would have thought could come over a phone line. "It's the FBI. What do you expect?"
> 
> "Dad," she had quipped, immediately defensive. "The FBI is a fine place to work--"
> 
> "If you're a spook--"
> 
> "Damnit, Dad! I called to _talk_ to you, not to get a lecture!"
> 
> "Dana, if you want to talk to me, _talk_ to me. Just don't expect me to agree with you."
> 
> She had started crying then. She hadn't meant to, but she couldn't stop herself. He just wouldn't listen to her. She was trying to say something important--something important to _her,_ and he just didn't care. 
> 
> He also couldn't deal with crying. "Look, Dana, if the FBI gets to you that bad--"
> 
> "-- _It_ doesn't, _you_ do!--"
> 
> "--Then maybe you should just get smart and quit!"
> 
> She had slammed the phone down on him, something she couldn't remember ever doing to him before. _Things didn't used to be like this,_ she had thought, curling up on her couch and crying. _Things used to be really good. He used to love me._

Probably things wouldn't have changed if she hadn't hung up the phone. Certain things were just the way they were. She looked down at the letters before her. _People just change._

She looked up, startled, as a nurse came in, medication in hand. The young woman looked at her, concerned. "Are you okay? You in pain?"

Scully shook her head with a sad little smile. "No, I just..." _deep breath_ "I was just reading over some letters from my father."

"Oh," the nurse said, nodding, as she handed her the pills. "Yeah, my dad died a few years ago. He was pretty mean sometimes, but I really miss him."

Scully looked up at her. The little-girl face made it impossible to gauge the woman's age. "What was he like?"

The woman smiled sadly, and Scully realized that behind that child's face, she had to be at least forty. "You know, temper, the occassional knock upside the head. He travelled for a living." She sighed wistfully. "I guess, after a while, he just didn't know me well enough. He thought I was still a twelve-year-old."

Scully stared quietly as the nurse left. She wiped her eyes again, and turned to another letter.

> _Dickey--_  
>  Dana was in some trouble at work. Someone, some psycho she and this Mulder were chasing, he attacked her. She's fine, Maggs said. Just a little shaken up.  
>     I knew this would happen! I tried to get her to see what kind of danger she was going to be in when she joined, but she wouldn't listen to me. This time it was minor. Next time she might end up dead.  
>     I don't know what to do about it anymore, Dick. She wouldn't listen to me if I told her to get out. I'm not even sure I want to tell her to get out. She's a good agent.  
>     A guy from Intelligence was at one of those awful Military Bashes last week. Seems he had worked with her on some case or other a while back. Hethought she was good--very good.  
>     It's obvious she knows what she's doing. Maggs even tells me how Starbuck tells her how much she enjoys her work. I can't ask her to leave something that means so much to her, but...  
>     But, Dickey, what if she gets hurt? Really hurt? I feel like, somehow, it would be partly my fault. I mean, maybe if I hadn't made such a production of it in the first place, she would have lost interest in a while. Decided that the FBI wasn't really where she wanted to be.  
>     I mean, did I railroad her into it? If she died because she was mad enough at me to join the Bureau as some sort of payback...

She smiled tenderly. Just like Ahab to think everything had something to do with him. She would have joined the Bureau regardless. Maybe the speed with which she did it had something to do with his opposition, but she hadn't done it just to spite him.

She had known he worried about her. Every time her mother called, it was "your dad wanted to make sure you were okay," or "your dad asked me to ask you if..."

Her poor mother. Caught in the crossfire. She had been the bridge between her husband and the daughter he had adored--the one he adored, but couldn't talk to. Scully wondered how her mother had ever put up with it.

She remembered a few times when she hadn't.

> "Dana, you'll have to tell him yourself."
> 
> "Mom," she had said, trying to sound reasonable. "I won't be home at all tonight. Mulder and I have a stakeout. I just want you to tell him happy birthday for me."
> 
> She had been able to see her mother, hand on her hip, finger poised at her daughter who sat miles away. "I am not a relay station between you and your father, Dana. If you want to say something to him, say it yourself."
> 
> "But, Mom.."
> 
> Her mother had softened automatically. "You two are so fond of each other, Dana. I _know_ you are. Just talk to your father. Surely a shouting match can't arise from a simple 'happy birthday'?"
> 
> "He doesn't like to talk to me, Mom."
> 
> Her mother had snorted, disbelieving, over the phone. "He loves you, Dana! He shows people your picture, and says 'That's my daughter, Dana. She works for the FBI.' And he says it with _pride,_ Dana."

She hadn't believed it then. It was something mothers were supposed to say, along with "you're beautiful," and "you're smart"--"your father is proud of you." Mothers had to say it, because fathers wouldn't.

And sometimes fathers just _weren't_ proud of their daughters.

But as she came to the last letter, she realized what a present she had really gotten. _She_ had recieved her father's pride--right here, in a little cigar box, written in his own flowery script.

The last one was a little shaking, a little brief.

> _Dickey--_  
>  Hope you do come up next week. Maggs is after me to drag you out of that sorry house with a crowbar. She really would love to see you. She wants to try to get Starbuck up here. I really hope she does. I miss her, Dick. She's so far away from me--a million miles.  
>     I know you'll kick me for repeating what you've been trying to say to me for years, but I think maybe it's time I broke down the wall. She may not like it at first--I'm sure I'll probably hate it--but we need to get things resolved.  
>     I wish she knew how proud I am of her. I wish she realized how much I love her.  
>   
>  Bill

Scully placed the letters carefully back in the box, sorting them by date, crying the whole time. Nothing could ever change for her and her father now. But someday, maybe soon, maybe not, she'd be able to tell him how much she loved him. She'd be able to apologize for it all. Somewhere in her mind, she heard a voice, long forgotten--a voice she thought she had dreamed--

> "Until the moment that I knew--I understood--that I would never see you again--my little girl.
> 
> "Then my life felt as if it had been the length of one breath, one heartbeat..."
> 
> "We'll be together again, Starbuck. But not now... Soon."

She let herself cry for all the things they had never said, and nodded. "Soon, Dad. I love you."

* * *

Instead of tiring her, as she had thought it would, the party refreshed her. She remembered her brother's words from Thanksgiving--it seemed years ago. "Concentrate on the living," he had said. As she looked up at him now, joking with Mulder and looking so like their father, she realized that he was right.

She had the remnants of her family. She had Mulder...

Missy and Dad were missed--sorely, painfully--but her life was here--right now, in this room.

A phrase came to her mind. She had no idea what it was from--could never recall actually hearing it: "Something lives on only as long as the last person who remembers it."

She ran a hand over the cigar box fondly. Ahab and Missy would be alive for a long time yet.

Mulder sat next to her, perched carefully on the edge of her bed. He handed her a glass of iced tea with a smile. "They're going to kick us out, soon," he said quietly.

"Yeah."

He looked at the box in her hands. "Is that from your father?"

She nodded. "He always did give great gifts." She turned awkwardly toward him. "So what did you get me?"

She expected something cheesy--she'd all but begged for it a week ago as she sat beside _his_ hospital bed. What she got was a small, framed sand-painting. Of a fox. She looked up at him, surprised.

"Where...?"

"A friend made it for me," he said quietly. "A healing gift, he called it."

She looked down at it again, running her good hand over its rough surface. A healing gift. That, she thought with a smile, makes two. 

She looked up at him--a cautious smile sat on his drawn face, hope in his eyes that she'd like the present. _Three._

"Thank you, Mulder," she said, leaning into him. "Thank you for coming back."

He draped a careful arm across her shoulders, squeezing tenderly. "Thank you for leading me back... Again."

* * *  
The End


End file.
